so it's two days later this is where we can kneel the day Adam and I we were
coming through on our way to port renfrew
and we thought let's just nip into Gordon Bay and have a look at this and it's
absolutely fantastic well it was fantastic the other day so we predict
that we're gonna get similar conditions and it was what -8 this morning
Adam bloody freezing I am freezing my giblets off but I've got my merino wool
layers and my gloves and my really cool toque so I should be alright so the hope
is that as the Sun rises behind this little islet this mist will get hit and
backlit by the Sun which might even create rays but it's a little bit choppy
right now I could do without that a little bit of wind
so hopefully that dies down and everything's got this God just a little
bit of frost on it not if you can you can tell but these limbs of this tree
and all of this this frost that's on these these ferns here absolutely
gorgeous so hopefully you'll get some killer shots so we've got about what
half an hour but half hour way Sun should pop up and then magic might
happen so you've got tea I've got coffee Yorkshire tea no y'all should see ya
proper I've got me coffee Cheers just mate what's the coldest you've ever been
on a shoot? - 40 where was that Jasper columbia icefields yeah
it's cold so we drive around we'd see something I jump out the car take a
picture and jump back in the vehicle that bad I was horrible I was up for
Abraham Lake and it was minus 35 with no wind chill and then we went to windy
point a good place which was aptly named and it was so cold that instead of
getting out the car I just rolled the window down just to see what it felt
like and instantly screamed just scream
window put the window back up and left and you know I'm a chunky chicken I can
take a little bit of cold it was horrendous the coldest I've ever been it
was Algonquin Park back when I was in high school on a winter camping trip
and it was so cold at the trees you could hear them cracking for the
moisture inside it was freezing all the sapwood and there was two or three kids
one had frostbite on his nose and I mean it was brutal I mean it was clear like
this but it was it was really it was dangerously cold yes and I'm not sure
how cold it's definitely it was someone said it was minus 50 but I mean if
that's true or not I spent most of the weekend in the car with a heater on yeah
and one of the teachers that we went with he had an old Volkswagen one of the
old air-cooled ones of course they didn't have any heat so it stick it in
turns driving with him I remember he he had a beard and they're these big
icicles yeah this beard doesn't feel good when you get it on your eye your
eyelashes and your eyebrows and your nostril hair all right big icicles
hanging off hanging up you spiders legs yeah and then when you get all of your
hairs in your ears look those we're getting a bit of light they're just on
the peaks it's starting to creep in I reckon 25 minutes 20 minutes I hope it's
not too far over to there behind the mountain now well we know
that it would that it was in the right spot the other day I think we're safe we
shall see hopefully you can see this magic light that's just start to creep
into the scene that Sun is popping up over that Ridge and look at that
gorgeous bit of color that we're getting in the sky there and this really
gorgeous Liebeck lit bit of mist in the background so when the Sun pops thinks
start to happen anyway I better get back to shooting so I don't use ND filters
all that often but this is still bright I'm gonna have to put on an ND so the
guys that break through filters sent me this thanks guys I haven't actually used
this it's slightly camera back for a year and my fingers don't work yet I've
got to open this thing oh my god why'd you have to pack it so well Dave oh I
reckon I'm in ok so for those of you that are not familiar with what a
neutral density filter can do basically it's like putting sunglasses on your
lens it stops out light so they forces your camera to take a much longer
exposure and it creates the illusion of a reflection it gives you much smoother
water like this it's not ideal but it's a good workaround when you've got wind
on the water Adam and I were just commenting on how
challenging this is so even with the nd that light is it's a little bit much
it's I was hoping it would be tempered and softened by them can I miss that we
got the other day which was absolutely fantastic we haven't quite got that and
so the nd is a bit of a compromise it's a workaround but it's not ideal so what
I've decided to do is I'm going to switch to the 24 to 1 or 5 now kind of
forget this wider scene I kind of zoom in and try and isolate an interesting
detail with some nice backlight see if that looks any better well all I managed
to get was this shot of Adam which I am gonna use as a bartering tool the next
time he gets all greedy when I'm in desperate need of a lens wipe deep in
the forest well we tried think I got an okay shot or two what
what you reckon yeah I mean I think it's one of those areas there's there's tons
of great potential here but it's it's it's difficult because the sun's right
glaring in your face so it's I think I might have got something but I always
like to say oh I don't think I got anything just to play safe we just
needed that little bit more mist I think I think part of the problem is is that I
mean the fog is great but there's just too much wind and it it kept blowing the
wind away from the trees yeah we were however somes
like god beams or something coming through the trees oh I do like some
companies so this is the second time this week that we've done this the first
one was kind of like oh let's just gonna have a look-see we're going to late
today was planned he even spent a night here in his car and I got up at 5:00
a.m. to come out and try and get this but you win some you lose some
you know it's still worth trying it's still a gorgeous barn in that we've got
to enjoy you know the question is did we come back again well I'm gonna spend
another night here I think I am not almost but not quite
what is your favorite type of white that's a good question I think it
depends what the subject is but I think my favorite type of light is where the
Sun has gone down right it's just risen and you get that I called the blush it's
it's that afterglow that you get once the sun's either on its way down or it's
gone down and things just light up and the reason why I like it is often you'll
get that cloud that's overhead and the light let's say you've got these pink
clouds over the top of your head it bounces down and coats everything on on
the ground with this pink hue like a salmon and pink or a red or whatever
color it is it's when you get that that bounce light that comes off but also my
second favorite kind of light is that it's what I talked about in that book
chart Gardens video is where you taken a picture of a tree or something and the
Sun is up and it's blasting down into a pond and it reflects off only about that
ball yeah and if it comes from below and that's that's very juicy juicy
about yours well I think you're definitely right depends on the subject
but I I did talk about this in one of my videos I did about light and I hate to
say it but my favorite type of light is actually with everything it's just
flying overcast yeah because I I like kind of stuff
that seems to work for me now I do like a bit of mr. then oh yeah I head over
the waterfalls but mind you this this waterfall we're going to now I mean if
the light was flying it would just be the same class time I was there the
first time yeah with this reflected light it just adds a little bit more
something just a little different a little bit more interest yeah something
that was kind of unpredictable so I like stuff like that yeah they agree what is
your all-time favorite image that you shot well I have one hanging on my wall
at home it's not it's not in-your-face kind of dramatic or anything like that's
just a forest scene with some nice soft light I like the mood on them but I mean
that's one of my is my favorite but it's one that I really like
do you have a type of favorite image or my favorite is usually the last really
good one that I got they're amazing it's like whatever's recently you knew
it was good at the time but I guess the the shots that go viral and do well that
you know you don't necessarily like and then there's other shots that you think
are absolutely GZ absolutely gorgeous and and people don't like them you know
so I don't know I'll have to ever think about that I think what it ends up being
is I think some of those shots are you take for you really liked her one by
ones that we had a really good day and we're just really great just to be out
there and you remember you know whatever it was I mean it could have been
the ambience of the place or good company or j-20 nice time Oh what it
means to you I think I say I think like one of my favorite shots I took was my
very last Moraine Lake image and it was it was you
know I needed it badly because I've been there a hundred times or more often with
clients at workshops and it just got nothing you know and I really worked
hard kept getting up at four o'clock in the morning driving all the way to town
you know like it was brutal and I failed failed failed and I have a very very
last shoe when I was leaving Banff to come back to Vancouver Island and you
know it's pretty sad and I needed this I knew I wasn't ever coming back and I
needed this shot and sure enough this little gap opened up which is what you
want you want missed you want low-lying clouds you want flat water you need all
these ingredients to align so that you you get this little gap of light that
hits the mountains and they glow and they reflect and I got it
yeah I mean it takes a long time sometimes
I just hate it when people just walk up to a scene and it like just opens up for
them it's difficult not to be bitter in it when you do cell phone yeah you work
your ass off and suffer and sacrifice to get shot and you never get it and then
they show up the first time with an iPhone and it's brilliant you're busted
yeah but it's funny you like the shots as far as favorite shots are the ones
that I tend to hang on my wall when they do hang my own are the ones that's in
your face dramatic
I just find those much easier to look at the Sun beautiful sunrises and that I
just find a bit over-the-top I think they're great for the wow factor
you're posting them if your idea is to just try and get as many thumbs up on
likes as you want the subtle ones yeah there's a huge difference between a
small four by five on Instagram that goes viral and then a spectacularly
large panel others seven feet wide fills a wall and people just can't walk past
without gawking at we but he wouldn't it would totally fail on this to grab you
know so it all depends on the medium as well as to as to how well it they may
just received I think I agree whatever you know I can only relate to what I
have but I mean I have an image that I really like took recently ever the panel
no it's actually a close-up of the sand pattern
I put a I had a sand dollar so this is pattern of sand and it was like
old-growth trees yeah and I got this sand dollar and I put it in the scene it
looks like a moon right your son right but I put it on Instagram of course
nobody's you look at it I think it's either a chalk drawing or some kind of
amateur painting yeah it was on - you look at it close then you realize that a
photograph of sand Jos a very juicy